


in the land of light and saints, may we meet again

by ladykestrel



Category: The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 11:57:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2268819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladykestrel/pseuds/ladykestrel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in modern day Ravka, centuries after the events in the trilogy. Alina goes back and reminisces about how things had been, on the day which Ravkans celebrate the light and the girl who had brought the sun down to earth. (Very vague about the ending, therefore there are no Ruin&Rising spoilers.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the land of light and saints, may we meet again

**Author's Note:**

> Meant to be a short drabble that would get me into writing again, but it kind of got away from me. Also, this suffered through numerous power outages and countless groans of frustration, so I apologize for it being not that great. (Originally posted on [tumblr](http://ladykestrel.tumblr.com/post/92762500026/in-the-land-of-light-and-saints-may-we-meet).)

“Mama, can we go light a candle for Sankta Alina?” A tiny girl, with braids woven into her hair like waterfalls, begged her mother, tugging at her sleeve.

“Of course, honey,” the mother replied. She looked down at her daughter and her eyes immediately brown eyes soften, reminding the small child of melted chocolate. Grabbing her mother by the hand, they set off to the large building ahead of them.

Indeed, it was a grand façade – despite other building succeeding it in size - made of the darkest wood and the shiniest gold. On its walls were engraved creatures of stories - ones that frightened children, and others that brought them joy. The fairytale beings were enfolded in vines and flowers that twisted and turned in every direction, intertwining with another at every twist, trapping the beasts and keeping them from ever escaping the walls. The golden domes glistered in the sun, as if they, too, were made of light. It was something out of a fantasy book, a bed time story that children demanded their parents read to them before they fell asleep. With its carvings and shimmering rooftops, the Little Palace brought Ravkans back to times of kings and privateers and magical people with exceptional powers.

That was not the real Little Palace, of course. The original was long gone, burnt down centuries ago by revolutionaries. It took them a long time, cost them much, but the Ravkan rebels finally brought down the infamous home of the Second Army. The only save haven Grisha had ever known. But, by then, the Grisha had disappeared, lost into stories, made into things of legends, whispered around fires. Some exiled, some made into ashes, all practitioners of the Small Science had vanished. The Little Palace went with them. The Grisha age had come to an end.

And so did the age of kings and queens.

Little after the uprising that destroyed the Grisha, came the real revolution. Ravkans stood and waged against the people who had mistreated them. Who were continuing to mistreat them. The royal family was slaughtered. Every nobleman, every servant murdered. Everyone who had once been in relations to the monarchy were hunted down until nothing was left but ashes, ashes, ashes. Ravka vozrozhdayetsya, the people cried. Ravka reborn.

And reborn she was. The nation elected their leadership. A government was formed. Peace treaties were signed and borders were secured. The country avoided war as best as it could have. Ravka traded with its neighbors, imported and exported goods from all sides. Colonies were formed overseas, on the new lands. The darkness of ages past had been forgotten, written only in journals, sealed shut in private archives. Only myths about what had been remained.

The people didn’t stop believing, they had kept their faith. Amongst all reformation, that was the only thing untarnished. They praised their god and worshipped their saints, paying them tribute and celebrating them on their holidays. Cities were named after patrons, cathedrals were raised up in their honour. And the people believed still. Even after nobody remembered the ones they were praising. Faith was a beacon of light, and the people grasped for it, needing something to believe in.

And this is how the mother and her child, along with thousands of their fellow Ravkans, found themselves in the new Little Palace, paying their respects for a Sankta they had only read and heard about. Stories were told about the light, how the sun became a living being and came down to earth to defeat the Darkness. Others say that a girl held it in her hands and had it at her mercy. There were other tales too, of the same girl who turned into a ray of light whenever she wanted, and visited the people’s homes to chase away the night. No matter which story people chose to believe, all knew of Sankta Alina, savior of Ravka, summoner of light, protector of the innocent. Over the generations, Sankta Alina had become the symbol of Ravka. Many centuries had passed and still statues of her in her golden halo and her ivory hair were raised. And each year, on this day, every Ravkan would light a candle in their homes, in their churches, in the Little Palace that had once been her home as well, so that the Sankta may visit them and drive away the dark and evil.

A pale, withered girl stood to the side of where the mother and her child had been. She was slim and petite, with hair black as charcoal, her form small and reserved. The girl looked young, not a day over eighteen years. But her eyes betrayed her age, her endlessness. They were dark and shadowed by the time she’d passed, by the lives she’d lost. All the sorrow and exhaustion of the world were gathered behind these two eyes, and were reflected like glass. And yet, when the little girl spoke of Sankta Alina, they filled with amusement and sardonic humour.

Little did they know, the saint they spoke of was right beside them.

No need to light me candles, I know I am holy, Alina would have remarked, once upon a time, back when she was young and knew nothing of her journey. But she wasn’t that person anymore. She had changed. And changed, and changed, and changed, until even she couldn’t recognize the person looking back at her whenever she passed by her own reflection. And Alina was tired of looking for who she was now. What use would that be, when she would just change again and again, and then she would have to start over. She didn’t think she had the strength to do that. Eternity had broken her and left her to pick up the pieces alone.

Quietly laughing to herself – it was not a joyful laugh, but an ironic one – Alina ventured into the crowd that was forming in front of the Little Palace. She hadn’t been in Ravka when the real one had burnt, and Alina found herself feeling grateful to the stars and the saints that she hadn’t witnessed it. She had had her first home burnt to the ground, then the second, and finally the third. It seemed wherever she went, she would be followed by flames that would leave her an orphan all over again.

The crowd moved, forcing Alina to lurch forward along with it. There had to be thousands upon thousands of people gathered in the square. Only a set number of people were allowed to enter the palace, and when they came out – another group went in. Alina wasn’t anywhere near the entrance, so she would have to wait for her turn. It did not bother her. She had the time. She had all the time in the world to wait. It seemed that was all she ever did nowadays.

Impatient people tapped their feet and some even stomped them, murmuring how long this was taking. Some had somewhere to be, others just didn’t like sitting in one place for too long, but all their patience was wearing thin. Except for Alina’s. The girl stood still, moved when needed, and silently awaited to get to the front. She had nowhere to go, nobody to meet. She was all alone, with nothing to do. She was still new to the city, or at least that’s what she was telling people. She introduced herself as Tatiana and said she was from out of town. She had made up some lie about wanting to start afresh in some place new, because her old life had been disinteresting. Alina was no longer surprised at how easily the lies came to her. They rolled off her lips like honey, and everyone was allured into tasting their sweetness. Centuries of practice worked in her favour.

The time came for her to finally enter the Little Palace. She and another hundred people shuffled through the building’s entrance, bought some candles from the woman in the front, then scattered into various rooms. There were candelabras placed all over, for candles to be lit and left there to burn. Alina didn’t buy one; she wasn’t going to pay tribute to herself.

Apart from a few modern tweaks, Alina was shocked to see how well replicated the Little Palace was. Such a detailed work had gone into making sure the palace looked the same on the outside, but even more so on the inside. She didn’t know how Ravkans did it, but she was glad. It brought her a sense of familiarity, a feeling of being home once again, even if this had never been her home, and the real one never would be again. All the same, it felt nice to have this piece of her past life back. It was so eerie, so real, that Alina could almost hear Genya coming down the stairs to scold her about her neglected appearance. She could picture Nikolai entering in all his glory, demanding that she had dinner with him at the Grand Palace. She could smell the foul food the Grisha were served, and suddenly wished she could go back and eat it all. A tight knot settled in her stomach and squeezed at her throat. Tears were swelling up at the corners in her eyes, but Alina would not let them fall. She had mastered the art of condemning herself of emotions, she had learned how to get rid of them. Swallowing them back, Alina went about the room, observing the small details that made her heart clench with longing and nostalgia.

An idea flickered inside her mind and Alina rushed through the room into the next one. All of a sudden, she wanted to explore every space in this palace, discover every inch of it. May it take her the whole day, she would not rest until she did. Nobody would bother to search for her anyways, and when all the other people who had come in with her leave, new ones would replace them and she would be forgotten. It’s not as if everyone ventured this further into the building. People came, looked around only on the first floor, lit a candle, and left, Alina knew. She also knew where to turn and which door to open, as if this was not her first time visiting.

Because it was not.

She had been in the Little Palace countless times before. Maybe not this exact one, but she knew the original almost as well as she knew the back of her hand. Alina was sure of where she was going, of what she wanted to see. Which was everything. She felt the need to devour this place with her eyes, seal it all shut in her mind and never let it go. Because, more or less, this was the closest to a home she had now, has had for centuries. So, on she went.

Alina went through the rooms - which were all unlocked seemingly as the locks were too old to all have keys – and her eyes widened more and more at every similarity she met on her way. Everything, down to all the bed chambers, had been restored here. She even found her old quarters, looking almost exactly the same at it originally had. Tears once again swelled in Alina’s eyes. She carefully moved out of the room before she could lose hold of herself and cry. It was harder, now, to not lose control, since there were no people to witness her emotions. But Alina was determined not to show any.

And she didn’t. Until she found the War Room. It was so frightening how it felt exactly as travelling back in time, to the moments she had been in here. Standing there, looking at the maps on the walls, that were perfect replicas of what Ravka had been, Alina couldn’t hold it in anymore. She thought about sitting here, trying to come up with plans on how to stop the Darkling. Of how he had stood here and planned how to conquer the known world. Of how they both had been in here. The she remembered everything, every memory, every fleeting moment that she had spent inside the palace walls. (To this day, Alina could not bring herself to think of Mal, out of fear that she would fall so deep in despair and could never climb back up. So she buried Mal in her heart, where he would be safe and no one - even herself - could get to him.) And she crumbled. The tears broke through like a dam, and so did her emotions. They drowned her, entering her lungs and replacing the oxygen in them with pain and longing and sorrow and despair and desperation and more longing. Alina fell to her knees on the floor and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. She didn’t know how long she cried, how long she had been struggling for breath, but it felt like an eternity. She thought she knew what eternity was like, but she was proven wrong. It was as if time had suspended her in this moment and she was cursed with living in it forever, never escaping, never moving forward. After a while, she stopped resisting. She just let herself cry and cry.

The sun was beginning to set, Alina could tell despite having no windows in the room. She gathered herself from the War Room’s floor and recomposed her appearance. She could not go out looking like she’d had been crying for hours on end, even if that was exactly what she had been doing. Wiping the last bits of tears from her eyes and taking a few deep, steadying breaths, Alina opened the door and walked out. She went through other doors and hallways until she was back where she first had entered. And just in time, it seemed – a huge group of people was just starting to make its departure. Alina easily blended in the crowd, looking like she had been part of the herd from the start.

Stepping out of the Little Palace, Alina was hit with the realization of exactly how much she needed something familiar in this land of unknown, modern civilization. She had learned to adapt to the changes time brought to Ravka, but she never really left her own Ravka that was ravaged by war and still developing. She was alone, truly, in every sense of the word. But she didn’t want to be. Alina desperately needed something, someone, anything from her old life. But nothing was left and her old life had long been buried. There was no means of going back to what was, only moving forward to what would be. Alina thought, after all these years, that she finally understood the Darkling truly. She was finally feeling the weight of his words, of his aloneness. She realized she had been feeling it all these centuries, but only now was she acknowledging them. Like she had repressed her powers from showing, she had shoved that weight so deep in her being, so far away from her reach. But the door she shut it behind was open now, with no way of closing it. Alina would have broken down again, in the middle of the square, if she had any tears left to spill.

A jolt went through her, and Alina felt something tug at the back of her mind. As if she was a violin and someone was pulling at her strings. She whipped her head up, only to have her eyes meet, from across the crowd, with a pair of quartz grey ones.


End file.
